Space Rig Log #2 | Season 3 Thoughts and Build Philosophy

Hey everyone! Welcome to episode two of the logs, hope your season 3 adventures are going well. I just recently hit level 50 in the season pass, though I cant really tell if its going faster or slower than season 2 so far. I do feel like the increase in Plaguehearts has made it just a bit quicker to grind out, given that you have decent luck with the events. Thats actually what I wanted to talk about first before we get into the other subject I had on my mind.

Season 3 has been really fun so far, my initial concerns were that it would be a bit of a bore compared to the Rivals introduction but even without its own dedicated mission type or brand new class of enemy, the Lithophage infection feels right on brand as far as theming and gameplay. It made sense for the Rivals to be a mission type and new enemy on their own, it was supposed to be us, the miners, attacking their operations. They were encroaching on our territory but weren’t actively going after us, at least until the Nemesis showed up. The Lithophage on the other hand is infectious and pervasive. Its directionless in how it spreads and thats reflected in the gameplay. The outbreak is on different parts of the map, in every mission type, in every biome. Its neat because this makes it feel less like a directive for us to go in and take care of it and more like its invading our normal operations all over the planet. There’s no escaping it even in non-outbreak missions with the Rock Pox Meteors and the new addition of the SMOL meteors too. I love that you can be anywhere and everywhere and still end up with a meteor impact or a Rock Pox swarm to remind you of what’s going on. It feels like Ghost Ship has gotten a bit better at telling a narrative through the gameplay and at the same time making sure that its not too disruptive. I say this because, even though you have to get rid of the Rock Pox in a mission to leave, they are a persistent and slow threat rather than an immediate danger. It can get in the way, sneak up on you or at very least contribute to ammo drain and regular swarms with its presence but I haven’t run into a situation where I was frustrated or overwhelmed by Rock Pox to the point where it ruined things for me. This is unlike the Rivals prospectors that could very easily spell doom if a stray bullet started their endlessly spawning patrol bots, especially during a swarm. Now, that isnt to say I dislike the Rivals as much as others do, more that I’m just acknowledging that they did require a lot more caution and combat to take care of compare to the Lithophage. Season 3 is sort of a return to form of the normal non-combat loop stuff in DRG. The cooperation, spacial problem solving and use of traversal tools is satisfying to do and this event lets you use those skills rather than pure firepower, which is a nice change of pace.

If I had a criticism I think it would just be that the Rock Pox is really easy to get rid of and almost seems to vanish too soon for me. Like, its nice that its not frustrating but I really didnt mind the 4 contagion spikes in the earlier parts of the season and experimental branch. Not sure if I’m in the minority of opinions there but I do wish we had tiered infection ratings sort of like what Banagement has for his mission content randomizer mod. Tier one would be a normal infection like we see now but two and three could be worse and more pervasive. Imagine a cave thats horribly overrun with the stuff, boils everywhere and up to six spikes you have to hunt down. It would take some serious problem solving and teamwork to cleanse the area and make some safe zone for you to fight and mine in, I think it would be cool. It could work kind of how double warnings do where they cant show up as assignment missions, exclusively reserved for players looking for a challenge or at very least some bonus season xp. I also just want more Rock Pox glyphids around, I think they’re fun to fight and wouldnt mind seeing them mixed into a regular swarms or even spawned ambiently into the cave initially around contagion spikes.

All in all, I’m glad theyre taking it easy with the new season though. As extreme as I like the game, I know Im in the smallest percentile of players. Its better for the games general heath for things not to be too frustrating. This is not only for newer players but also because it lets the devs figure out what the good and bad of their design is to change things for later. The introduction of the SMOL meteors is proof that theyre a lot more flexible about this stuff than I had initially thought, call it learned pessimism from seeing how other bigger devs behave about their games. I’d love to see smaller parts of the infection slowly rolled out over the season, all building up to something near the end or even the beginning of season 4 with the crescendo of this chapter of the Lithophage arc of the game. If the pattern remains the same then I feel we can probably look forward to at least one more season relating to Rock Pox in some way. Personally, I think it would be cool to have it all culminate in a Caretaker like mission but with Rock Pox, a huge infection similar to the tier three I described earlier with a big central room and a massive infection similar to what we see in the promotional art for season 3. My fingers are still crossed for a huge worm enemy. Like, cmon, would you LOOK at the Rock Pox larvae? They’re practically begging to be scaled up and turned into a huge room sized boss battle! Eh, well have to see. For now let’s move on to the second thing I wanted to talk about this episode with you, that being build philosophy.

Ok ok, I know that sounds super self important but its something thats been rattling around in my head and especially since people have been discussing builds a LOT in the discord channel, Ive been really thinking about a video I could do surrounding that but, I first want to get the thoughts out here and see what you think.

So, I dont know if you’ve noticed with my builds a certain pattern but I tend to use different Overclocks and rarely repeat them unless combined with a new gun. For instance, I used the same Heavy Hitter EPC on both my Icey Hot Man and Flouromancer builds for driller. This was for two reasons. One, I find that EPC effective and felt it fit well with both builds obviously, but two involves the fact that I actually have those both in my A slot on the weapons terminal. Its not just the same config, its the exact same gun. I do this with every single build actually, all of them needing to fit into the total config of my A through F load out slots in some way, preset with mods and overclocks and simply needing a couple clicks to switch to when needed. Once you do this for every gun and every load out slot, you end up with a preset configuration of like sixty plus possible builds ranging from every type of crowd control, damage, status, mobility and niche you can think of. I realize that Ive never really spoken about this in a video, presenting every build as a standalone among its peer builds for the class or weapon I’m grouping them together with. I’m considering making a video about this, including everything I currently have set up and several examples of me changing to appropriate builds to show how quick and convenient this type of set up has. Ive been doing this since day 1 would love to share the method with people to help them squeeze just a bit more variety into their play sessions with it, if it can help.

Now doing this does have some drawbacks I suppose. One of the biggest being that you can have EVERY combo ready at one time. Like say I want to use Lead Storm on more than one build but the secondary I want to use it with is in B rather than C. I would have to change the secondary I have in C to match the other in B which might nullify another combo in C with another primary weapon. You see what I’m saying? The flexibility is hampered there but I suppose that only applies if you want to have every single combo be its own combo, and also if you want to avoid changing mods and overclocks around too often.

That latter point there, is what I think keeps a lot of people from experimenting with new set ups. It can be pretty tedious to swap mods and overclocks around all the time, especially if you cant remember what you wanted to use off the top of your head. Sure you can write them down or look at Karl.gg or a video to check what you need but its still quite a bit more work than simply clock A or D or F to pick a build you already have ready. Ive noticed most people dont do what I do and only have a max of like six builds for each class ready to go, or even less. A few have maybe two or three, one general, one crowd control and maybe one specialized for Dreadnoughts but thats it. That’s not me trying to talk down about it, I get that it takes some time to set up builds and often times people dont want to mess around with it a whole lot and just jump into the next mission, especially if they have friends who theyre playing with and only so much time to game for that night. Gotta make the most of that time and clicking back and forth through mods and Karl.gg and weapon slots is hardly what anyone wants to do in those moments. I spend a lot more time in the game for obvious reasons and have the time to mess around with weird shit or comparing the feel of things.

Regardless, what this ends up doing is discouraging people from having odd builds in favor of the ones they deem as the most effective. In some extreme cases, locking their entire play experience into one or two builds deemed the best by either them or someone else in the community. These jack of all trades builds are definitely not bad most of the time and some on paper are very capable of the best DPS or what have you stat or metric they espouse as their selling point. The issue, in my opinion, arises when that single build becomes the end all solution for every single person regardless of play style. Some may never feel the need to change, rather just adjusting their skill and tactics to fit the scenarios and maybe swapping grenades or perks occasionally, which is valid too if thats what they prefer. Some though, may feel pressured to never change not due to preference but the knowledge that this is the best its gonna get, that no other build will perform better than the one or ones they currently have set up. Or simple due to time constraints I stated earlier preventing them from experimenting since they’d rather just get playing already.

This can result in someone trying to force a square block through a round hole all the time, continuing to use builds that try to get every job done to a degree but have no particular sharp edges. Or at very least, even if theyre getting the job done fine, they can stagnate gameplay to the point where everything always feels the same no matter the mission. Best way I can think of giving you an example is with Cryo Cannon. Its good, really good, and nobody is at fault for using it since freezing bugs for a team wide 30% damage buff is crazy good, but when I imagine using that for hundreds and hundreds of missions without change, I cant help but sigh. Its just, to me, boring to solve every problem the same way every time, always having the same advantages and disadvantages in every fight. To me, this would kill the fun of the game quickly for me, but obviously thats just from my perspective. Ive always enjoyed variety and while I always will have favorite characters and weapons and factions in every game, I almost always try a little of everything just to keep things fresh and engaging. The point of every build I make in my videos is that it always has a bit of a gimmick, a combo, a specific niche its trying to fill, even the generalist ones. They all have something they excel at dealing with and something they are lacking in. It also adds an extra layer of complexity and mastery to the game because instead of just learning enemies and movement you can start to learn what the dos and dont of each of your builds are and know when to take one over the other. Its that push and pull of advantages that makes every mission feel different and causes a bit of excitement when my current set of niches is challenged by new threats like a Mactera swarm, rivals or a surprise dreadnought. The devs built these threats and system by which the game delivers those threats to keep people on their toes, not to frustrate. You never know what to expect, and this goes in both ways. If your build isnt a jack of all trades all the time or just simply going for max DPS above all else, you can end up in favorable situations too, sometimes accidentally trivializing things that would’ve caused you a lot of trouble otherwise. Like Neurotoxin grenades being less popular overall with people but making any situation with lots of weak enemies laughably easy when it could have been bad otherwise. I’m getting off track a bit here but I think you see what I’m trying to say here right?

My point is that the slog of mod changes may stop a lot of people who would prefer more variety and specialization from doing so. If I make a video on it, I want to show off my config in its entirety to show people how quickly I can adjust to the current mission type and that its not just a choice in the dark but a deliberate decision each time like “hmm I’m going here with this thing, so I should swap to this and that thing.” Just for examples sake here, Ill go through a few actual missions and builds I would choose for them.

I’m engineer, I look at the mission map and select a point extraction mission. I know its a large map with open space so a build with long range would be a good choice, but I’m missing a scout, so I might go for my LOK and RJ250 build to compensate for the movement Ill be lacking. Maybe to make up for less range in my own weapons Ill take Gemini Hawkeye sentries to cover a longer range for me, especially since I can ping specific targets for them. Oh but its complexity 3? Maybe mark 2 sentry would be a better with the slightly longer range than the 2 Gemini’s with the added benefit of requiring me to come back to refill it as often. Oh but whats this? I didnt realize what the mutator was, which is Mactera plague. This changes the priorities a lot and gives me a risky decision to make. Do I sacrifice the RJ250 mobility for more potent arial killing power? Do I try to make it work with what I have and maybe rely on my grenades to help out? Tell a teammate my plan and ask them to go all in in Mactera killing capabilities? Its an interesting question to answer and can paint the entire missions with a different flavor depending on your answer. There’s no wrong one either, just the right one for you. It allows creativity rather than just requiring you to get good with a generalist build but! That’s also a correct answer too! You can negate the strong variables and rely on yourself more with generalists, maybe be more ready for regular ground based enemies too if they show up more from the ambient spawns. And this is just ONE MISSION were talking about here. If the mutator was swarmageddon, or shield disruption, or the mission type was different, that changes everything again. The only thing you need to have all these options available is a little bit of set up ahead of time to give yourself the options in the first place. Once you learn your build configs and use them enough to know what works in what situation for you, it gets far easier to tackle higher hazards and stranger missions than it is to just jump in and hope for the best. Give yourself some sharper tools and you can do a lot more than simply try harder for a better outcome, you can trivialize the worst of any threat the game throws at you.

Talking this out kind of convinces me that it’s definitely worth it to show off how I have things set up. I dont by any means think that my way of doing it is the best way, or even that my personal builds are the best of the best but I do think that I have a lot more fun with the game doing this and want to share it with other people. If that means giving them a starting point to copy my set up so they can mess with it later on, thats just fine by me. My plan is to show off every single build combination I have with notes on the left of the screen with the build name, type (such as firepower, crowd control or generalist) and what situations I normally consider bringing it in. It’ll be a like a cheat sheet for deciding what to bring on a mission and whether people keep coming back to it or end up figuring out their own way of doing it with my stuff as a launching point, I’m happy. In the end, I think it will give the game just a bit more longevity for the players who want to keep experimenting long after they reach the promotion cap like I and others at my player level have. Thanks for listening to my rant about this, if you want to hear more examples or have any questions or comments on this I’d love to hear them. I hope to do this as a part of the upcoming videos I’m doing. Ive got… a LOT of stuff I want to do and very little time to do it so I going to get back to work on the Season 3 weapon changes video I’m almost done with and see you back on Twitch and YouTube very soon. I like doing these little essays on various things in the game that I toss over in my head a lot. Other stuff I’d like to get into might include the whole gold thing, the grind, player etiquette, climbing up hazard levels, you know, subjects like that. Let me know if those or anything else you can think of would be interesting to talk about. It really does help me get my thoughts organized about them and closer to having better scrips for the future content, plus I love rambling, you should know that much by now haha.

I think that’s everything for now, these episodes should be a bit more frequent now that I’m done with multiple future scripts and am on the recording and editing part of things. Ill keep em coming. Thanks for the support, Ill see you soon! Rock and Stone!